M.F.A. in Painting, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., with coordinated course in Archeology at Columbia, (60 hours with Thesis and Exhibition) 1981.B.A. in Fine Arts and English, Baylor University, Waco, TX, 1964.Graduate work in Computer arts at Pratt Manhattan, 1993.Graduate work in Education at California State University, Los Angeles, 1990.Graduate work in Painting, at Academia di Belle Arti, Florence,Italy 1975, Prof. Silvio LoFreddo.Graduate work in Constructive Design and Painting at Florida State University under Karl Zerbe (Bauhaus artist from Germany, 1965-68).

Jill has painted in her private studio at her homes in Florida, Indiana, New York, Los Angeles, and Kentucky. She painted the only extant portrait of Thomas Merton, now hanging in the Merton Museum in Bardstown, KY. She lived for a year in Florence, Italy, attended the Academia di Belle Arti and exhibited her Italian paintings at the Incontro di Stranieri in the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. In 1975 she exhibited her Italian paintings at the Parthenon in Nashville, TN. She had paintings in the Speed Museum in Louisville and was designated a Kentucky Artist, receiving that honor in 1976 in Frankfort, KY. She also illustrated 9 books and began to exhibit in New York City, at Goethe House and Ward-Nasse Gallery, among others. In l977 she lived in Seoul, South Korea as a Visiting Artist under the auspices of the U.S.I.S. While there, she used local materials to create 40 paintings inspired by her travels throughout the Orient. She lectured and held workshops in Fine Arts and her work was exhibited at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.

In l979 Jill went to live in Westbeth, in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, NY. She attended and earned her M.F.A. degree from Pratt Institute in 1981. She was represented by galleries in New York City, upstate NY, Kentucky and Texas, and exhibited internationally. Meanwhile, she worked as Production Assistant for Institutional Investor, served as Editor of Women Artists News and was active with W.C.A., W.A.A. and other arts organizations in Manhattan. In 1980, she bought and moved to a SoHo loft on Broadway at Prince St. During the 1980s she moved to Los Angeles, to a loft there, and worked as free-lance visual artist, painting and exhibiting in L.A. galleries. In Los Angeles, she taught art at Pierce College in Woodland Hills. She served on the board of the Los Angeles Visual Artists Guild and was a member of the Graphics Arts Commission of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She became president of Los Angeles Artists Equity (LAAE), for 2 years and remained on the Artists Equity Board for 7 more. Serving on the Advisory Board of National AE, she was elected SW Regional Vice President of National Artists Equity Association in 1984.

In 1991 she moved back to New York and lived in her SoHo loft. She exhibited and sold work from New York galleries and her studio in SoHo. She worked for NY Artists Equity and was elected President of the NY State Chapter of National Artists Equity.

By1996 she bought a Studio/Home on Old Hickory Lake in Nashville, Tennessee and began exhibiting throughout the southeastern states. She opened a gallery in Gallatin, TN and exhibited the works of many artists there. She was also a Professor of Art at the Art Institute of Tennessee—Nashville, and privately taught basic studio courses, such as Beginning Drawing and Perspective, 2-D Design and Aesthetics in her studio. She was an Instructor, teaching Composition/Communication for Phoenix University on their Nashville, TN campus, an Instructor at Nossi College of Art in Goodlettsville, TN and was an Instructor of Fine and Commercial Art there. She also worked as a Reporter and was Production Assistant for the Gallatin Newspaper and for the News Examiner, a Gannett paper.

In 2006, Jill moved to New Harmony, Indiana, where she painted, exhibited and had a studio. She still exhibits her artwork in New Harmony at the Contemporary Art Gallery, run by the University of Southern Indiana. She exhibited in Evansville at many downtown locations and won awards for her work at the Evansville Museum of Arts and Sciences, which owns one of her prints. She worked as a Reporter and was in Image Production, using Photoshop at the Posey County News, Posey County, IN. She also was Adjunct Professor of Humanities, Department of Humanities, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, IN, and Visiting Professor in Art History for the Dept. of Art History and Archeology, University of Evansville, Evansville, IN.

In May of 2012, Jill moved to Louisville, KY, where she opened her own space in a commercial plaza: Artist’s Studio, from which to work on paintings, prints, illustrations and publishing. Currently she is Co-Chair of the Roberta Marx Gallery at Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church, Louisville, KY., and an Adjunct Professor in Art, for the Department of Art, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, IN. She has traveled to France and Italy over the past few years, to paint and lead workshops in painting.

Artist Statement

ARTIST'S STATEMENTFebruary, 2016My work encompasses several mediums, including drawings, collage, prints and watercolor, oils, photography, and computer graphics. All of it is representational which tends to either be impressionistic or surreal. I began creating art when I was about 2 years old. According to my mother, I spent hours a day and used up reams of paper drawing quietly by myself all throughout my childhood. I know throughout my school days that my teachers all commented on and encouraged my youthful drawings and sent me to art classes when possible, even when it wasn’t for my grade.I was driven to try to recreate what I saw. I was determined to capture the beautiful things I saw around me. My grandmother was a prolific artist, creating big, impressionistic paintings of ladies on patios, landscapes, dark woods and open plains with mountains, and she encouraged my abilities. My mother gave me extra-curricular painting lessons during my teens. My high school art teacher threatened that if I didn’t have a picture on the front of Post Magazine when I grew up that he would come back at night and rattle the paintbrushes in my studio. I did posters, portraits of my classmates and program covers. I helped make backdrops and paintings for school assemblies and charity auctions because I realized that with the talent I had been given came responsibilities. I majored in Art in college, at Baylor University.As I grew into adulthood and married, I felt guilty when I didn’t have the time to paint, because I was raising children or working at tedious jobs. But I was driven to create art, putting pencil to paper to recreate the thousands of visual images in my head. While I was growing up and later, I lived overseas for a year each in Spain, and Italy, where I studied the masterpieces at the Prado and painted under the masters at the Academia di Belle Arti in Florence. My work was in a major official U.S. Exhibition in Paris and in Italy was chosen for a one-person show at the prestigious Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy. As a young mother and faculty wife, I showed my work in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and gradually to a wider audience. The State of Kentucky chose my work to hang in the capital and called me an official “Kentucky Artist.” My work was at the Speed Museum in Louisville and I enjoyed a one-person show at the Parthenon in Nashville. Living in Seoul, South Korea for over 9 months, I took advantage of the opportunity to create a major exhibition for the U.S. Information Services, exhibited in the old American Embassy. I also toured South Korean artists and universities, to lecture and lead workshops for the USIS.I knew I needed a challenge beyond my local reach and took my portfolio to New York, where I immediately booked two shows and began to exhibit in the 1970s. In 1979 I moved to SoHo in NYC, where I worked from my loft and earned a 60-hour graduate degree at Pratt Institute, an M.F.A., in 1981. My work has been chosen for exhibition in their permanent collections by the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Evansville, by Purdue University, and by other institutions. It is in private collections in Washington, D.C., New York, Connecticut, Florida, Los Angeles and elsewhere. I was fortunate to have exhibited at galleries in the major cities of New York, California, Kentucky, Florida, Texas, and other states, as well as overseas.I have sought to be true to my strengths and have resisted other occupations and callings to be a visual artist. I know it is the gift I was given and so have tried to develop it and bring new and innovative visions to it. I feel my surreal collages are the most successful works, but I have also developed my abilities in watercolors and plein air oil landscapes, and have been given awards for landscapes in oils and watercolor. I work on several works at the same time, often in different genres.

M.F.A. in Painting, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., with coordinated course in Archeology at Columbia, (60 hours with Thesis and Exhibition) 1981.B.A. in Fine Arts and English, Baylor University, Waco, TX, 1964.Graduate work in Computer arts at Pratt Manhattan, 1993.Graduate work in Education at California State University, Los Angeles, 1990.Graduate work in Painting, at Academia di Belle Arti, Florence,Italy 1975, Prof. Silvio LoFreddo.Graduate work in Constructive Design and Painting at Florida State University under Karl Zerbe (Bauhaus artist from Germany, 1965-68).

Awards

AWARDSVisiting Artist to the Republic of South Korea for the United States Information Services (USIS) in 1977 for 9 months. Directed Workshops in Fine Arts, mounted Major Exhibition of my paintings created there, held at end of year.Sabbatical to Florence, Italy, January to August, 1975, Studied Renaissance/ Italian Art in Florence, Italy, studied Painting at Academia di Belle Arti, Florence, held an exhibition of my completed Italian work at the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence.Awards for Paintings in various juried shows, New York, Nashville, and Evansville, IN. Yearly trip to Paint in Arles, France, Artist’s Studio, 11760 Shelbyville Rd., Louisville, KY 40243. Visit with Artists in France, take workshops and paint.Bank of America Fine Arts Award, Best in High School, 1960.